Garden update

Lots of progress in the garden, but none with the hedge. As winter has yet to arrive there's no sign yet of the hedging plants so no progress. However this leaves plenty of time to dig a vegetable patch, which is just as well as there's 5 parts rubble, concrete, glass and sundry builders waste to 1 part topsoil. In fact for a reasonably sized vegetable patch I reckon we'll need a tonne of manure to replace the tonne of waste materials we'll have to extract!

Good news on the bird front though, as with the season drawing in and food becoming scarcer we are getting more concrentrated bird activity. We've hit 25 species in the garden now, the latest being 6 Long-tailed Tits which spent about 3 minutes in one tree last weekend. We are regularly seeing flocks of 30-40 Goldfinch, 50 + House Sparrows and 20+ Starlings. This weekend included 3 Robins, a Sparrowhawk, a Kestrel, 9 Magpies, 4 Wood Pigeon, 3 Collared Dove, 4 Dunnock, 6 Blue Tits and 4 Great Tits, 3 Blackbirds and a Crow!

I haven't taken many snaps recently but this one shows the braver Goldfinch feeding while I was standing close by:

We can't wait for the hedge to be in and growing as it'll provide ideal cover for the ground feeders and habitat and food for many more birds in the coming years.